Tethering the iPhone in Linux

Since I want to be able to use my Linux laptop on the go without paying for a “tethering plan” or paying for a separate plan, I decided to try tethering my iPhone. Doing this with network-manager is simple.

Note: If you are comfortable with using iwconfig, you can use that instead of steps 1 and 2.
The steps:

Switch your wlan card to roaming mode

In the wifi menu on the menu bar, create a new wireless network and secure it if you wish.

Connect the phone to the network.

Note the phone’s IP address.

Use ifconfig to give the computer a similar IP address

Install and run 3Proxy on the phone (I recommend stopping 3Proxy when not in use to save battery life)

Set Firefox to use the phone’s IP as a SOCKSv5 proxy.

In about:config, set network.proxy.socks_remote_dns to true if you want DNS queries to go through 3Proxy

Browse the web.

If you plan on doing this a lot, I recommend doing a few things:

Give the phone a static IP for your ad-hoc network

Make a separate Firefox profile for proxy use

At the beginning of each month, reset your usage statistics. This way, you will be able to monitor your bandwidth so you don’t go over your carrier’s cap.

This entry was posted
on Wednesday, October 1st, 2008 at 23:03 and is filed under linux.
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